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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Reminder: John invited you to join Facebook...
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Taken from today’s Writer’s Alamanac:It was on this day in 1931 that James Joyce and Nora Barnacle went down to a courthouse in London and got married. Joyce was 49 years old, and Nora was 47. The two had eloped more than a quarter of a century before.
Nora and James had their first date on June 16th, 1904. It was the day that he later chose as the setting for his novel Ulysses, the day that's now celebrated around the world as Bloomsday. They'd taken a walk around Dublin, and immediately Joyce was convinced that this uneducated witty girl from Galway was the one for him. He wrote her a letter in August that said, "When I am with you I leave aside my contemptuous suspicious nature. I wish I felt your head over my shoulder now."
Joyce chose today, July 4th, his father's birthday, as the wedding date. His
father had been upset and offended by Joyce's elopement with Nora, and Joyce
chose this date as a nod toward making amends. But the real reason that he felt
compelled to get legally married after all these years was to make sure that his
children and grandchildren were assured of their inheritance. Joyce was by now
famous for Ulysses and the royalties were pouring in. He wanted to make sure
that his children wouldn't be hung up in legal battles and denied their
inheritance by the state because of the questionable legality of their parents'
marriage. So he and Nora went through an English civil law marriage ceremony to
comply with English legal standards and thus secure his offspring's future
endowments.
Wife and I watched “He’s Just Not That Into You” last night. The movie turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. As this clip illustrates, it’s a pretty busy movie, with lots of characters and lots of interwoven relationships:
In the film, Neil (Ben Affleck) and Beth (Jennifer Aniston) have been dating for seven years and have been living together for several of those years. They appear to be quite happy in their relationship, and to be soul mates or in romance writer lingo, OTL’s (one-true-loves.) Problem is that Neil doesn’t want to get married, but Beth does. In the “Maybe he’s just not that into you” vein, Beth concludes that Neil will never marry her because he doesn’t really love her, and she kicks him out. I don’t think I’m giving away any big surprise plot twists when I say that eventually Beth realizes that Neil is her OTL and that marriage or no, he is the one she wants.
Such is the give-and-take of love. Some 26 years before their marriage (and even before their elopement) James Joyce letters indicate he gave serious consideration to leaving Nora, complaining, "Nora does not seem to make much difference between me and the rest of the men she has known and I hardly believe that she is justified in this." Nora on the other hand believed that Joyce was ignorant about women. She is said to have been unenthusiastic about his writing career and once told a Joyce admirer "I've always told him he should give up writing and take up singing."
Wife wishes I didn’t smoke, probably wishes I didn’t’ drink, and would love it if I would put up less of a fuss about going to church. I wish she would drink, be a little less indignant about other people, and just in general lighten up.
I’ve always had a hard time figuring out whether love was about asking or not asking. Is it “If you loved me you would…” or “If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to…”
I guess in the end it’s about not making excessive demands on each other, but rather living with and enjoying the best of what’s there.
Friday, July 03, 2009
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